Pre-Term SAIS Bologna - Economics Courses

General:
Microeconomics and Macroeconomics are offered at the ‘intermediate’ level during pre-term in 2 ½ hours slots on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, for a total of approximately 30 hours. In addition, two-hour review sessions (including the math tutorial) are held on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The course includes a mid-term and final exam lasting two and three hours, respectively. Each course involves an intensive program of study that would ordinarily take place over a complete semester. Many students choose to take Survival Italian combined with either Micro- or Macroeconomics. It is also possible to take both Micro- and Macroeconomics in pre-term, but the workload is extremely heavy and this option is therefore strongly discouraged, except for students with a very strong background in economics.

Passing the Micro- or Macroeconomics course in pre-term enables students to fulfill part of the economics requirement for the M.A. or M.A.I.A. program, thereby leaving more space in their academic program for other economics courses. However, pre-term courses do not count for credit toward the overall number of courses required for any SAIS degree program or the Bologna Center Diploma.

Because Principles of Microeconomics and Principles of Macroeconomics are required before beginning M.A. work at SAIS, students with no background in microeconomics and/or macroeconomics are reminded that they must pass the SAIS Online Principles of Economics course or an equivalent course outside SAIS before taking the intermediate level courses in pre-term or during the regular academic year.

Note:
Students are strongly discouraged from taking both Microeconomics and Macroeconomics in pre-term, unless they have an extensive background in economics or another field requiring strong quantitative skill.

Students in the International Development program must have passed the Microeconomics requirement prior to the beginning of the academic year.

Microeconomics
This course gives students the opportunity to receive a systematic presentation of microeconomics at an intermediate level. It satisfies the microeconomics requirement at SAIS and also enables students to take classes with a microeconomics prerequisite (for example, International Trade Theory) during the first semester in Bologna. Topics include individual decision-making in situations of scarcity; consumer behavior and demand; labor supply and demand; theory of the firm; production, cost and supply; market structure and resource allocation; factor prices and distribution; and market failure and the role of government. Students should be aware that the intensive course, like the microeconomics course offered during the academic year, requires recent familiarity with basic algebra, functions, graphical analysis and basic calculus.

Macroeconomics
This course gives students the opportunity to receive a systematic presentation of macroeconomics at an intermediate level. It satisfies the macroeconomics requirement at SAIS and allows students to take more advanced courses where macroeconomics is a prerequisite (for example, International Monetary Theory). Topics include national income accounting and the balance of payments; output determination in an open economy; models of inflation and unemployment; fiscal and monetary policy; exchange rate determination; and international inter-dependence through trade and investment flows.